Chapter eight: Crimson letters
Gomamon paced up and down in his office, the score of the 'Phantom' laid down open on their desk. Gomamon returned to his chair and impatiently flicked through the work. "Ludicrous! Have you seen the score!" Agumon had just entered the room, nodding. "Simply ludicrous!" Gomamon slumped down in his chair, sighing. "It's the final straw!" But Agumon shook his head in refuse. "This is lunacy! Well you know my views…" They both were sure about HIS work. "Utter lunacy… But we daren't refuse…" Gomamon groaned and looked up to the office's ceiling. "Not another chandelier…" When suddenly Agumon noticed two crimson letters on the desk he handed them to Gomamon who teeth grinding began to read. "Dear Gomamon, Re my orchestrations: We need another first bassoon. Get a player with tone and that third trombone has to go! The man could not be deafer, so please preferably one who plays in tune!" He turned the letter but no further comment or greeting this time, so Agumon opened his... "Dear Agumon, vis a vis my opera: some chorus-members must be sacked. If you could, find out which has a sense of pitch - wisely, though, I've managed to assign a rather minor role to those who cannot act!" They were interrupted by Arukenimon and Mummymon who rushed into the office extremely infuriated. "Outrage!" Arukenimon shouted and Agumon could only ask what it would be now. "This whole affair is an outrage!" She yelled brandishing a crimson note. "Arukenimon, please... Now what's the matter?" Gomamon asked her. "Have you seen the size of my part!" She hissed at them in a pitched voice. Gomamon tried to calm her when Mummymon burst in. "It's an insult!" Agumon groaned rolling his eyes. "Not you as well!" He too had a crimson note in his hands throwing it at Agumon. "Just look at this! It's an insult!" Agumon begged him to understand as Gomamon groveled for Arukenimon. But she just shook her head in disgust. "The things I have to do for my art!" Mummymon meanwhile sneered and stabbed a finger at the open score. "If you can call this gibberish: art!" The door of the office opened again when Angewomon and Angemon entered. "Ah! Here's our little flower!" Arukenimon bristled dryly. "Ah, Angewomon, quite the lady of the hour!" Agumon rushed over to her and Gomamon explained. "You have secured the largest role in this 'Don Juan'." Arukenimon mumbled half to herself that this girl would not have the voice and was hushed by Agumon. "Then I take it you're agreeing." Angemon addressed to the managers, while Arukenimon mumbled again something in the background about Angewomon being behind this. "It appears, we have no choice..." Confessed Gomamon shrugging, Arukenimon was not longer able to contain herself. "She's the one behind this! Angewomon" She yelled pointing at her accusingly. This one which had been silent until now, incensed at this. "How dare you?" But Arukenimon glared at her. "I'm not a fool!" Angewomon glared back with hatred. "You evil woman! How dare you?" Arukenimon threw her head back laughing sulky. "You think I'm blind!" But the female vaccine shook her head and eventually spoke out what she thought. "This isn't my fault! I don't want any part in this plot!" Everyone was quite astound about this , but finally Agumon reasonably meant. "It's your decision... But why not!" He asked suddenly rounding on her. "She's backing out!" Arukenimon whispered to her lover. Gomamon stared at the vaccine. "You have a duty!" Angewomon however shook her head in denial. "I cannot sing it! Duty or not!" Angemon tried to comfort her. "Angewomon... Angewomon, you don't have to. They can't make you!" Suddenly the door opened for another time and LadyDevimon walked in, followed by Lillymon. "Please digimon, another note!" The others gestured at her to read it, so she unfolded it. "Fondest greetings to you all! A few instructions just before rehearsal starts. Arukenimon must be taught to act..."
-
Flashback
-
"…Not her
normal trick of strutting round the stage…" The vampire
pondered deeply, he wanted it to sound not more menacing than it had
to be. "Myotismon…" He flinched at his desk as he heard
DemiDevimon's voice behind him. "I thought I had told you NOT to
visit me again!" The smaller one fluttered up to Myotismon's
desk attempting to find out what he was doing. "It seems as if
you could not be on your own for one minute without control,
especially not nearly half a year, my friend!" Myotismon sighed
covering the just written with another piece of paper. "Please…
As you can see, I am working!" DemiDevimon raised an eyebrow and
more or less accidentally pushed one of the candles down of the desk
with his wing. It landed on a pile of books and documents which would
be turned aflame in a few seconds. Alarmed Myotismon stooped to
extinguish them. "I heard you had worked a lot in the last time…
Precisely that you have written an opera…But the wine at the party
was a bit stale, don't you think?" Myotismon startled hitting
his head against the table-top. He had used nights and days for
composing and writing and was still slightly fatigued. "You…
You have been there!" DemiDevimon nodded silently rummaging
through the papers. "Indeed… Oh what's this?" He said and
took a neatly written letter into his talon. "Our Don Juan must
lose some weight - it's not healthy in a man of Mummymon's age... "
He was interrupted by Myotismon who insistent seized the letter from
him. "This! Is non of your concern!" He hissed, hiding the
letter in his desk's drawer. "Aha... I see! One of these famous
crimson letters!" DemiDevimon sighed but was suddenly swept from
the desk by Myotismon. "I would appreciate a swiftly departure
of yours, for I have a theatre to lead." Myotismon bent over his
desk to snarl down at the perplexed feather-ball. "I was amazed
of your entrance! But tell me… YOU have written an opera about a
man who can have every woman he wants!" Myotismon's eyes
narrowed to slits as he hissed through clenched teeth. "Do not
dare a foolish comment!" The rookie noticed his remark was
slightly more sarcastic than it would have been healthy. "Well
as you like it!" DemiDevimon ruffled his feathers then he
fluttered into the air again. "But just be noticed. You're
adding fuel to the flames with every of your demands! The celestial
vaccines are neither deaf nor blind! They're already observing the
theatre! Your stratagems will send you into eternal limbo!" He
muttered and went to the digiport. Myotismon groaned in disbelief.
"How poetic! But now, back to my correspondence..." He took
the letter out of the drawer and read through it. "And my
managers must learn that their place is in an office, not the
arts..."He leaned back and thought about this sentence again.
"You don't really want to write this, do you!" Myotismon
flipped round and saw DemiDevimon flapping in the door. He groaned
disparaging and buried his head in his hands. Before he could stop
him DemiDevimon fluttered over to him and grabbed the letter, reading
it aloud. "As for Angewomon . . .No doubt she'll do her best -
it's true her voice is good. She knows..." Again Myotismon
interrupted him, this time by reciting the rest of the letter.
"...though, should she wish to excel she has much still
to learn, if pride will let her return to me, her teacher,
her
master..." DemiDevimon sighed handing him the letter back. "Oh
Myotsimon, hadn't she caused enough pain to you? Believe me, this
cannot find a happy ending!" Myotismon frowned looking at the
letter. "Especially this..." He waved with the note in
front of DemiDevimon's eyes. "Cannot find an ending, as long as
you are heckling, consequently you will either leave immediately or I
will make you leave. The choice is yours!" DemiDevimon decided
that former would be the wiser choice. Myotismon sighed relieved and
eventually finished the letter. "...Your obedient friend..."
-
LadyDevimon still read for them aloud.
-
"...And Angel..." The attention focused on Angemon now who suddenly had a flash of inspiration as he watched Angewomon. "We have all been blind! And yet the answer is staring us in the face! This could be the chance to ensnare our clever friend!" Everyone looked up and stared at him in roused curiosity. "We're listening!" Muttered Gomamon when Agumon shouted inquiring. "GO ON!" Angemon nodded and began to explain his cunning but actually quite simple plan. "We… shall play his game! Perform his work, but remember…" He said pointing at them with his forefinger, letting a pause to rise the tension. "We hold the ace! For if Angewomon sings, he is certain to attend!" He nodded self-satisfied as he saw that they understood what he was thinking of. "We make certain the doors are barred!" Gomamon assured him carried along by the idea. "We make certain the angelic vaccines are there!" Agumon added likewise and Angemon completed his plan. "We make certain they're armed!" And everyone had the same thought, they had the perfect plan and savored their victory. "The curtain falls! His reign will end!" All had been listening intently, LadyDevimon was the first to express a reaction. "MADNESS!" Gomamon declared that he would not be sure, but could not say about what as Agumon interrupted him. "Not if it works…" LadyDevimon still persisted on this idea being madness. "The tide will turn!" Agumon assured her but she was certain. "Digimon believe me! There is no way of turning the tide!" And he meant she would be stick to ballet. "Then help us! Instead of warning us!" Angemon demanded remembering their conversation. "Please, I can't… I wish I could!" Angemon and the directors beseeched her to help them. "Don't make excuses---… Or could it be that you are on his side?" Angemon inquired suspiciously. "Angemon, believe me, I intend no ill… But Agumon, Gomamon, be careful! We have seen him kill…" Both looked at her definitive and self-confident. "We say he'll fall! And Fall he will!" Arukenimon was still head-strong. "She's the one behind this! Angewomon! This is all her doing!" Of course Mummymon followed her example. "This is the truth! Angewomon!" But Angemon shouted at them it would be undoing. The directors addressed to him. "If you succeed, you'll free us all! This so called 'angel' has to fall!" He nodded and shook his fist to the ceiling. "Angel of Music, fear my fury! Here is where you fall!" LadyDevimon was still worried about this plan, she spoke to him. "Hear my warning! Fear his fury!" However Arukenimon resisted stubborn as before. "What glory can she hope to gain? It's clear to all, the girl's insane!" Gomamon whispered into Agumon's ear what everyone already knew. "Angewomon sings… We'll get our 'mon! If Angewomon helps us in this plan!" Mummymon meant she would be crazy, would be raving. Angemon grinned victoriously. "Say your prayers! Black angel of death!" Angewomon who had been calm all the time, now pleaded vainly amongst the tumult. "Please don't…" No one listened to her in fact Gomamon spoke to Agumon as if she would not be in the room. "If Angewomon won't than no-one can! This will seal his fate!" LadyDevimon meanwhile was begging Angemon not to do this. Eventually Angewomon saw no other possibility to burst through the hubbub, than with a loud cry. "IF YOU DON'T STOP, I'LL GO MAD!… Angemon I'm frightened!" He heard her sobbing when she turned her face to him. "Don't make me do this! Angemon, it scares me!" He tender skimmed over her soft blond hair. "Don't put me through this ordeal by fire!" Angemon embraced her gently and encouraging, but she was too anxious. "He'll take me, I know! We'll be parted forever… He won't let me go…What I once used to dream… I now dread… If he finds me it won't ever end…" She unloosed her love and looked at the ceiling, shivering. "… And he'll always be there, singing songs in my head… He'll always be there singing songs in my head…" She looked so fearful, Angemon was deeply commiserating. Everyone stared at her, Arukenimon muttered she would be mad. Angemon wanted to say something to hearten her, somehow he felt like being in some sort of déjà-vue. "You said yourself, he was nothing but a 'mon. Yet while he lives… he will haunt us till we're dead!" He tried to take her hand but she wandered across the room, absent-minded. "Twisted every way, what answer can I give?… Am I to risk my life, to win the chance to live? Can I betray the man who once inspired my voice? Do I become his prey? Do I have any choice?" She buried her face in her hands, when Angemon was gently seizing her shoulders. She looked up to him and then looked back into the sky. "He kills without a thought! He murders all that's good!… I know I can't refuse…and yet I wish I could…" Tears were dripping from her mild chin onto her breast. Her heart was filled with doubts and anxiety. "Oh God! If I agree, what horrors wait for me… In this the phantom's opera!" Angemon kissed her lips, tasting the salty tears. It was almost as in this foggy night, unless this time he knew, they were eavesdropped. "Angewomon… Angewomon, don't think that I don't care but both, the crest of light and hope, belong to you now!" He embraced her tightly while she felt his warmth and knew he was right. He had to be right, or they all would be doomed…Overcame by her conflicting emotions she turned away and hurried out. Angemon strode forward and addressed to an imaginary phantom. "So, it is to be war between us! But this time, clever friend, the disaster will be yours!"
They had a plan, a
brilliant plan but to realize it, they had to follow his orders
first. And that meant performing his opera, so rehearsal began.
Cherrymon supervised the learning of the new piece, the chorus was
just singing its part, while he accompanied them on the piano. "Hide
our sword now wounded knight! Your vainglorious gasconade brought you
to your final fight for your pride, high price you've paid!"
Angewomon's part should follow now, she was nervous still somehow
unwilling to play. " Silken couch and hay-filled barn both have
been his battlefield." She shivered as she remembered who had
written this and wondered why. Mummymon as Don Juan had the male
leading role, he began singing but sadly he had his own idea of
emphasis. "Those who ta---ngle with Don Juan..."
Immediately Cherrymon tapped onto the keyboard with his baton.
Mummymon rolled with his eyes. "No,
no, no! Chorus rest, please. Don Juan,
Mummymon - here is the phrase." He took a deep breath and
demonstrated how it should be emphasized. "...Those who tan--gle
with Don Juan...If you please?" He tapped onto the keyboard
again and they repeated Mummymon's part, hoping he would do it the
right way, this time. "Those who ta-a-ngle with Don Juan..."
Cherrymon closed his eyes and grinded his teeth, he needed to
interrupt him again. "No, no... Nearly- but no! Those who tan,
tan, tan..." Mummymon listened rather inattentive, nodded and
started singing again. "Those who taaanlge with Don Juan!"
Arukenimon hearkened in delight and addressed to the others standing
around them. "His way is better. At least he makes it sound like
music!" Some nodded agreeing, some shook their head, one of the
last was LadyDevimon. "Digimon! Would you speak that way in the
presence of the composer?" Arukenimon was deaf to the
implications of this remark and spoke more to the air than to
LadyDevimon. "The composer is not here. And if he were here, I
would..." But LadyDevimon cut into her sentence, very ominous.
"Are you certain of that, digimon...?" Everyone gazed at
her and then looked around nervously. Meanwhile Cherrymon had
regained his tolerance for Mummymon and attempted a new trial. "So,
once again - after seven..." He tapped with his baton, slightly
harder than before, gave the note and counted in. "Five, six,
seven . . ." Mummymon took a very haughty pose and sang, in the
opinion of singing right. "Those who ta-ng-le with Don Juan..."
As again he was wrong, gradually everyone started either to talk or
to practice his phrase simultaneously. Arukenimon shrugged conceited
about all this. "What does it matter what notes we sing?"
But LadyDevimon told her to have patience. "No-one will know if
it is right or if it is wrong! No-one will care if it is right, or if
it is wrong!" She began mocking about the whole play and than
showed her own version of Mummymon's part. He however still tried to
get his line right. He even asked Angewomon whether it would be ok,
but it sounded rather flippant. But she demonstrated it for him, too.
Meanwhile Cherrymon tried to restore order in this loud mess, though
he could hardly hear himself speaking. Finally he thumped the keys
and left the piano in attempt to attract attention he used signals,
waved with his arms, still unnoticed. At the height of the mayhem,
the piano suddenly began to
demonstrate the music unaided. It
played with great force and rhythm. All fell silent and froze then,
suddenly started to sing the piece robotically and accurately. "Poor
young maiden! For the thrill on your tongue of stolen sweets you will
have to pay the bill - tangled in the winding sheets!" As they
continued Angewomon moved away from the group...
Angewomon lay in her bed and looked at the ceiling, Angemon had decided it would be better for her to stay in her room. She felt alone and cold, her whole life she had been waiting for someone but yet she hadn't found that someone. She sat up in her bed and looked out of the window onto the gray streets. She made her decision, she needed to get out, at least for a few hours…Carefully she opened the door and pussyfooted past Angemon who had fallen asleep in guarding her door. She tiptoed down the stairs to the stables, where some Phantomon waited for clients. "Phantomon…" She whispered and the digimon with their scythes listened up. One of them hovered over to her. "Where to, digimon?" She looked around, to be sure that Angemon had not followed her. "To Overdell Cemetery." She said with a hushing voice and gave him a bit of money before she went to fetch her overcoat as it was cold and foggy out there. Phantomon nodded and began counting the money when he was knocked out.
Angemon startled on his chair, he had a bad dream. He shook his head and then saw the opened door of Angewomon's room, he rushed into it, but her bed was empty…
Angewomon waited at the street for Phantomon, from out of the fog a dark stagecoach appeared. It was supported by a metal frame, complexly detailed with silver studs lining the sides of its form. A bat was curved in each of the wooden wheels, the windows framed with copper, but without glass in them. The stagecoach was drawn by two feral Devidramon's hot vapor was swelling around their nostrils in the cold. The whole vehicle looked menacing, but it was the normal look of the stagecoaches of the Phantomon transport agency. The Phantomon on the coachmen's seat was taller than his colleagues but equally wrapped into a dark cloak. Angewomon looked up to him and repeated her destination slightly more detailed. "To Overdell Cemetery, to the grave of the unknown." The Devidramon reared but where calmed by a tight pull on their leather reins, slowly the stagecoach began to move…
Angemon rushed down the stairs when he stopped in one story and looked out of the window he saw a stagecoach slicing the fog, he was not quite sure, but he thought he saw a glimpse of Angewomon in it and he had a strange feeling… He gasped and took two steps instead of one, he ran down to the stables were he bumped into a Phantomon that held its head in ache. "Where have they gone?" He shouted at the Phantomon and shook it at the shoulders. "To Overdell Cemetery…" He mumbled and hovered away shaky. Angemon was really worried now, he grabbed the reins of his white Unimon and skipped onto its back, without a saddle. He set spurs to it and dashed into the fog.
Angewomon sat in the stagecoach, its gentle jolting weighing her like a child in its bassinet. She thought about so much while she heard the footsteps of the Devidramon trotting over streets and pathways and lanes. She began humming but soon the words left her mind and then her lips. "…In sleep he sang to me…In dreams he came…That voice which calls to me… And speaks my name…" She whispered silently and looked out of the window regarding the landscape drawing past her.
Meanwhile was Angemon urging his Unimon on as hard as he could. He knew an Unimon could never reach the speed of two Devidramon with lead but he hoped that the stagecoach's weight would help him to catch them before something terrible could happen, whatever this might be.
The stagecoach arrived at the tall iron gate of the Overdell Cemetery. Angewomon got out and pushed the rusty gate open, it shrieked like a Bansheemon. She walked slightly aside to the part of the cemetery where the unknown rested. Of course no one needed a cemetery in a world were nothing remained of a digimon's data to be buried, this cemetery was more like a graveyard for memories and feelings. For the friends of those digimon who had not been reconfigured, who had been deleted, here on Overdell cemetery they could mourn about their 'deceased'. The cemetery of the unknown was something different too. It was a place to mourn for those digimon who felt that there was something missing in their life but they never knew what it could be. It belonged to a sort of digimon religion that if this missing piece was not found until the digimon had reached its champion level, there was no other solution than the deletion of this certain thing. So the cemetery of the unknown was the place were the lonely digimon came to, to mourn about their bereavement… In most of the cases it would have been a digimon to spend their life with, but sometimes it was about other things to, things occurring to destiny, to hope, light, bravery, curiosity, love, reliability, sincerity, friendship… But sadly the digimon would never know for what they had waited. So this was a very lugubrious place in the Digiworld. A place where one's mind could go astray very easily…
